Local Anesthetic Used for Dental Treatment in Children- Systematic Review

Aims: To analyse the existing literature on the effectiveness of various injectable amide local anaesthetic agents for children undergoing routine dental treatment.

Design: A systematic search was carried out for the databases of PubMed, Central, LILACS, Science direct, Metapress and SIGLE to identify clinical trials published on the effectiveness of injectable amide local anaesthetic agents in dental journals from the inception of the databases up to July 2015.

Results: The systematic search gave nine studies. Four of out seven studies found articaine to more effective. No significant difference in anaesthetic effectiveness of the agents were found in seven studies. One study reported significant difference in the anaesthetic effectiveness in favour to articaine. Two studies reported articaine to have longer duration of action.

Conclusion: With the available evidence, this review may suggest that articaine is an effective amide anesthetic agent. Lignocaine is most effective at 2% concentration. Prilocaine and mepivacaine show comparable effectiveness. As eight of the studies have high risk of bias, there is a greater need for well-designed randomized controlled studies to be conducted to assess effectiveness of various injectable amide local anaesthetics to be used in children for routine dental treatment.